“Is there a place I can wash up while I’m waiting?” Prudence asked.
“Oh, yes, if you don’t mind coming back to the kitchen. The boss is resting, but he wouldn’t mind, probably.”
Prudence pumped her own water and carried it to a little room off the kitchen. A short while later, face washed, braids coiled into a loose bun rather than looped at the base of her neck like she wore them on the road, dusty shirt and vest replaced with a clean blouse, she looked almost respectable—as long as no one looked under the table.
When Prudence re-emerged, Maria was doing something wonderful-smelling with not only the promised eggs and beans, but with onions, chiles, and cheese. Prudence nodded and went back to the dining room. There she chose a seat where she could overhear the conversation in the adjacent bar.
As Ricardo had indicated, there weren’t many customers. Except for Prudence, the dining room was empty. In the bar, three men were playing a lazy game of cards. The bartender was chatting with a fat man with printer’s ink staining his fingers.
They all noticed Prudence when she took her seat, but after she pulled out a Bible and began to read, they went back to their other activities.
Jake had taught her the Bible trick. The Bible wasn’t the kind of reading matter a “soiled dove” would favor. Nearly as good as having crossed eyes or spotty skin to keep the men away.
Jake . . .
This time the Bible didn’t work. Prudence smelled printer’s ink. Then a shadow spilled over the pages. The fat man was standing beside her table.
“May I join you?” he asked, and slid out the chair across from her without waiting for her reply.
He had the mellifluous tones of a professional preacher, squint lines around his eyes as if he did a lot of reading in poor light, and nothing of the unctuous manner Prudence had come to dread from the hucksters who went from town to town, pretending to be holy men.
“Mr. Eli at the mercantile said you were asking some mighty strange questions,” the fat man said.
Maria came in and set Prudence’s plate of eggs, bacon, and beans in front of her. She gave the fat man a fleeting smile.
“Coffee, Reverend Printer?”
“Yes. Black as night, sweet as sin,” the man answered, rolling his words with gusto, “and hot as hell . . .”
Maria giggled. Prudence guessed this was an old joke between them.
She rolled some of the bacon, beans, and eggs into a flour tortilla and took a bite. Heavenly. She ate another bite.
Maria looked inquiringly at Prudence.
“If this is what you do on the spur of the moment,” Prudence said, “I’m coming back when you’re ready. I’ll join the gentleman in a cup of coffee, and put his on my bill.”
“I thank you,” the man said, when Maria had left, “for your hospitality. I started poorly. Let me introduce myself. My name is Gerald Holman. I am an ordained Lutheran minister, but I am also the editor of the local newspaper.”
“Thus the nickname,” Prudence said.
“As you say. As editor of the local paper, I was interested when a prominent local citizen told me a curious tale.”
“Did he bring it to you?”
“No. I stopped in for some supplies. Eli was still trying to figure you out.”
Prudence smiled. “Good luck to him. I’m Prudence Bledsloe, by the way.”
“Of?”
“Currently, that stand of cottonwoods down by the stream, if no one objects.”
Reverend Printer’s eyebrows rose. Prudence knew her choice of doss would create comment, but comment was what she wanted.
“No one should object,” Reverend Printer said. “Now, Eli said you were asking about . . .”
A loud, almost human scream from outside interrupted him. Prudence’s table was next to a window. They leaned forward as one to get a better line of sight.
A muscular, stocky man was walking down the middle of the street, leading two pack ponies. Or rather, trying to lead two ponies.
One pony had apparently been struck by a rock and was now trying to bolt. Only the handler’s considerable strength kept it from doing so. A laughing group of men on the porch of the saloon across the plaza made amply clear where the rock had come from.
Despite being dressed in jeans and a button down shirt, the man now quieting the frightened pack pony was obviously an Indian—Navajo or Apache, Prudence guessed. He wore his dark hair to brush his shoulders, beneath a high-crowned hat that shaded the sculptured lines of his face.
“Nathan Yaz,” Reverend Printer said quietly. “He’s courting Maria—the woman who cooked your lunch.”
“He doesn’t seem overly welcome,” Prudence said.
That was an understatement. None of the several people watching Nathan Yaz’s ordeal were coming to his aid. A tall man wearing a sheriff’s star pointedly turned and walked into the nearest building.
“We’ve had Indian trouble lately.” Reverend Printer said, pushing back his chair and heading for the door.
Prudence thought about joining the minister, but decided that the appearance of a woman in trousers might only make matters worse.
She settled for easing open the window and resting her rifle barrel on the sill. She was a good shot, and if those rock-throwing drunks threw another rock, a warning shot might make them think twice.
But there was no more trouble. Reverend Printer escorted Nathan Yaz around the side of the hotel. There was a sound of angry voices from the kitchen. When these quieted, he returned, bearing the coffee pot.
Prudence had already slid her rifle back under the table, but kept it where she could get to it quickly.
When Reverend Printer had filled her cup and resumed his seat, she asked quietly, “Indian trouble?”
“Sheep killed—messily. Cattle stolen. In a few cases, cows were found mutilated. Worse, a little boy who lived on one of the outlying ranches disappeared. Later, a little girl, not more than three, also went missing. Her mother—a reliable woman—claimed the child had been stolen out of her bed.”
“And folks are sure it’s Indians?” Prudence said.
“Who else?” Reverend Printer’s tired voice said that he knew there were other options, but also that in a case like this people took sides along race lines pretty fast. “Rustlers would sell cattle, not butcher them. Still, until the children vanished, it could have been rustlers. When the children started going missing, well . . . Everyone knows that the Indians keep slaves.”
“So did white folk,” Prudence said softly, “not that long ago.”
“I know. I know.”
“So that’s why Nathan Yaz got such a warm welcome?”
“Not so long ago the Navajo were the enemy,” Reverend Printer said. “Never mind that they’ve been relocated to lands where it’s a full time job keeping body and soul together. People don’t forget.”
“Neither have the Navajo, I bet,” Prudence said. “They’re going to be saying things like, ‘Look. We live peacefully, and still they blame us. Why should we stay peaceful? What is there to gain?’ ”
“So you can see why I wondered at you coming to town as you did, asking questions like you did,” Reverend Printer said. “As editor of the local paper, I’ve been exercising a little censorship, playing down the sensationalism, but people do talk.”
“And you wondered if I came following that talk?” Prudence nodded. “In a sense. I’ll assure you, though, I have no desire to stir up further trouble.”
She didn’t say more, and she guessed something on her face told the fat man that she wasn’t going to do so. He sipped the last of his coffee and rose.
“Pleasure meeting you, Miss Bledsloe.”
“Pleasure,” Prudence echoed, and meant it.
After Reverend Printer had left, Prudence sat thinking over what she’d learned. She didn’t think it was Indians causing the trouble, but if she told Reverend Printer her suspicions, it wouldn’t help. No one would believe her. No one who hadn’t lived through what sh
e had.
The dining room was cool and pleasant compared to outdoors, but if she was to pitch her camp she should get moving. Prudence found Maria in the kitchen, rolling out what looked like pie crust.
“I’ve come to settle my bill,” Prudence said.
“No bill,” Maria said firmly. “I saw your rifle on the windowsill. I don’t think you would have shot Nathan. Come back tonight. I am making peach pie.”
Prudence put her coin purse away. “Thank you, and I just might.”
She collected Buck and Trick from Ricardo. The horses’s coats and their tack gleamed. Buck nibbled with sleepy contentment along her arm, telling her he’d been treated very well indeed. Prudence paid what was asked without dickering and added a tip besides. Then she rode for the cottonwoods.
It was a nice stand, plenty shaded, with a pole corral and stone fire circle already in place. Prudence pitched her tent, then built a fire, going a bit afield to gather something other than cottonwood. Cottonwood burned hot and messy, tending to flare out of control.
Like some folks I know, Prudence thought.
She didn’t go into town for dinner, but sat by her small fire. If anyone had been watching, they would have seen her taking the single piece cartridges she had bought from Mr. Eli and methodically changing the lead bullets for some she took from a box she took out of her own gear. These bullets shone brightly as she inspected each in the firelight . . . shone like silver.
Prudence had banked her fire to dull coals and settled her head against a rolled blanket when she heard stealthy footsteps approaching. She was reaching for her six-shooter when she smelled peppermint.
“May we come in?” came a hushed, female voice.
Prudence hadn’t heard this voice before, but she knew who it must be. She didn’t put the gun aside, but she did ease her finger off the trigger.
Two small figures came into her camp and stood where she could see them, but where they would not be visible from outside the camp. One was the little girl she’d seen in Eli’s mercantile. The other was a Navajo boy just slightly taller. He smelled of wood smoke, mutton, and sage, spiced with peppermint.
Interesting, Prudence thought.
“Welcome to my fire,” she said. “Coffee?”
“No, thank you,” came the girl’s voice. “And thank you for the peppermints. They’re my favorite, but Grandpa only gives me a few at a time.”
“Good for the digestion,” Prudence said. “I don’t see any harm in them.”
“Your name is Prudence Bledsloe,” the girl said, rather as one confirming a fact, not asking a question.
“It is. And you are Miss Eli?”
“Miss March. April March. April. My mama was an Eli. This is my friend, Vernon Yaz.”
Ah-hah! One mystery solved.
“Pleased to meet you both. Does your grandpa know you’re out, Miss March?”
“I . . . well, no. I piled up the blankets in my bed, though, and he and Grandma are well and truly asleep.”
“Still, you shouldn’t stay out late, just in case. I think you and Hosteen Yaz have something to tell me?”
The boy laughed softly. “Hosteen” was a Navajo title of respect, roughly translating as “old man.” He had caught her joke and appreciated it.
“You were asking questions,” he said. His words were flavored with the accent that marked a Navajo speaker: ts and ds blending, gs vanishing, vowels elongated. The syllables were run together, as if the speaker was accustomed to much longer words. “I heard Maria telling Nathan—he’s my mother’s brother—what Reverend Printer told you, but Reverend Printer doesn’t know it all. April said you should hear this.”
“So there is a Navajo side to the trouble, too,” Prudence said. “I thought there might be.”
“We have lost sheep. We don’t have cattle, but the peaches have been ruined on the drying racks. And our children—three little ones—have been stolen. There are whispers that a witch is at work.”
“Tell me more.”
Vernon did so, going into great detail. Prudence listened carefully, making little noises to indicate that she had understood, but otherwise not interrupting. She needed to hear what Vernon had to tell, but if children were disappearing, the last thing she needed was to have these two found in her camp.
Vernon’s story matched what Reverend Printer had told. The thefts showed a level of malice beyond what rustlers or simple thieves would commit. Goods had been spoiled. Misery, not gain, had been the goal. And no trace had been found of the missing children.
“When did these things happen?” Prudence asked.
Vernon told her. His way of giving dates didn’t follow the Gregorian calender, but he had a firm awareness of phases of the moon. That was good enough. With his permission, Prudence took out a scrap of paper and made notes.
April was less certain when the white children had been stolen, since they didn’t belong to the town community, but she did know when her grandparents had started watching her more carefully, keeping her from going outside to play.
“I have a new pony,” she explained. “Vern and I were practicing for the races. Grandma and Grandpa hadn’t minded, then all of a sudden they did.”
“And they’ll mind,” Prudence said firmly, “if they find you out of bed. I’ll walk you back to your house. You staying in town, Vern?”
“Nathan,” the boy said, his smile flashing in the dark, “is visiting Maria. I am supposed to be sleeping off very much peach pie.”
“I’ll walk you both back,” Prudence said firmly. “Buck, mind the camp.”
The stallion snorted and shifted his weight from side to side.
After April and Vern were delivered to their respective beds, Prudence hurried back to her camp. She tried to sleep, but memory warred with conjecture, keeping her awake long after the coals of her fire had guttered into ash.
The next morning, Prudence broke camp and headed out toward where Vern had told her the worst of the “witch trouble” had occurred.
Most white folk thought of the Indians—when they bothered to think about them at all—as living the life of hunters and gatherers. To some whites this was living in savagery. To others the Indian way was the ideal of the noble savage. In the case of the modern Navajo either image was also completely false.
Although the Navajo were not town dwellers, as were the various tribes the Spanish had dubbed “Pueblo” Indians, neither were they tepee-dwelling migrants as were many of the Plains tribes. The Navajo built houses—most commonly the various styles of hogan—kept flocks of sheep and herds of horses. Some even maintained orchards, favoring peaches and other stone fruit. When Kit Carson had wanted to drive out the Navajo, he’d burnt their trees.
But Prudence’s route didn’t head toward the stream beds or river bottoms where those orchards would likely be, nor did she turn toward where flocks of sheep and goats grazed on the sparse summer vegetation. She set Buck’s head toward the hot, dry, rocky reaches, a land of majestic stone cliffs and vegetation closer to grey than green in color. The trail they followed once they left the town and its outliers was merely the suggestion of a trail, a path of least resistance rather than one that indicated frequent travel.
As Prudence journeyed away from the town, she thought about what had brought her to these hot, dry lands, so far from where she’d grown up, and with nothing but two mustangs as companions.
Prudence Bledsloe had been born in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee, in a tangled green hollow well away from any of the towns listed on any map. The Bledsloe clan had been part of a small community of a dozen or so families, all of whom were descended from a group of immigrants who had come to the New World from Eastern Europe.
Those original immigrants had been lured by the promise of unsettled land. More importantly, they longed for a degree of tolerance toward different creeds and ways of life that was impossible to find even in the most isolated parts of Eastern Europe.
The Bledsloe clan had consisted of Prudence’
s parents, her elder brother Jake, and a couple of younger cousins who had moved in with them after a sickness took their own parents. Sometime later, a return of that sickness had wiped out Clan Bledsloe along with much of the community. Most of the survivors had resolved to rebuild. Jake and Prudence had decided to head West.
The two remaining members of Clan Bledsloe hadn’t had much, but they were adaptable. The skills they needed merely to survive in the Smokeys had served them well on the trail. Sometimes they’d linked up with a wagon train, but most often they traveled alone.
Prudence thought about those long days on the trail, eating dust on foot at first, later eating more dust on horseback. Those hadn’t been precisely happy days—shelter was often scanty, and Prudence and Jake both mourned those who had died of the sickness. They’d done all right for food, though, both being skilled with various weapons. And they’d had hope, hope of finding a place where they could settle, raise cattle, and maybe someday forget.
Buck snorted and shifted uneasily. Prudence shook herself from the dangerous distraction of memory. Pulling her rifle from the saddle boot, she swung down to get a look at what had disturbed the big mustang.
She found it within a few yards of the trail: a sheep, one of the hardy, four-horned churro breed that the Navajo favored. Telling much more was pretty near impossible. The sheep hadn’t just been killed; it had been flayed open. The guts had been pulled out and much of the meat had been stripped from the carcass. The hide had been left intact, but many of the bones were splintered and sucked clean of marrow.
Flies buzzed over what remained, their wings making enough noise that Prudence knew she should have heard it from the trail. The carcass stunk, too. She should have smelled that.
Prudence scanned her surroundings, resolving that no matter how compelling the past was, old memories had to wait on the present. That is, unless she wanted to give up all hopes of a future.
A new thought hit Prudence, making her catch her breath.
Did she honestly care if she had a future? The future had been taken from her twice: once when the Bledsloe clan had been wiped out by disease, once when Jake had been taken from her.
A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters Page 2
